When it comes time to sell your home, both your indoor and outdoor landscaping play large roles in determining your home's first impression and overall appeal. It's not difficult to see why: Your prospective buyer pulls up in front of your home, REALTOR® in tow. A carefully maintained lawn, trees and/or flowers convey that you take pride in your home. Why give the false impression that your home is a fixer-upper when you allow weeds and an overgrown lawn to drive your prospective buyers away? Not that you have to roll up your sleeves and learn Gardening 101 in a week's time. But a few simple guidelines will help you prepare your landscaping and the interior plants of your home to present a neat and well-maintained appearance. That's the objective here.

Whether you're a novice or you "dig" gardening, you'll want to check out Dig, an online magazine that caters to gardeners at every level -- even if gardening is just something you admire from afar. The magazine's tag line is, appropriately enough, "Home and Garden Diversions." You'll find some helpful advice here for your interior and exterior plant maintenance, but you'll also find an eclectic mix of other information about food and cooking (including growing your own herbs), music, book reviews on such topics as how to find "good junk" for your home at local flea markets (a mode of decorating called "junk style"), articles for hobbyists, such as one about maintaining aquatic gardens, helpful advice on pest management, maintaining your soil throughout the seasons, and more. The site's music link, a list of recommended selections, is a rather odd addition to an otherwise mostly home-oriented site; nevertheless, gardeners need some good music as they work, right? The site also includes a film link, another offbeat feature. A diversion to be sure, but its home and garden connection alludes this writer.

One noteworthy feature of Dig magazine's site is its division into "Inside" and "Outside" links, enabling users to quickly and easily locate their desired information. The "Outside" link contains a Garden category where users may choose from such selections as "design (topics including landcape design, formal gardens, mobile gardens, and re-engineering your garden, for example)," "maintenance (lawncare, pruning, and a gardener's "to do" list for various months and seasons)," "plants," and "techniques."

"Plants," also inside the "Outside" link, is a helpful itemized feature containing additional articles covering the maintenance of annuals, bulbs, herbs, house plants, lawns, perennials, shrubs, roses, trees/fruits/nuts, vegetables and wildflowers. Readers are treated to a full archive within each category, as well, enabling them to view 18, 20 or more articles on each subject.

Within the "Inside" link is where you'll find the quirky yet entertaining articles about films and music, as well as an online art gallery and -- most important -- articles about indoor gardening techniques.

Dig's users are bound to be an interesting and diverse bunch. Catering to that crowd, the magazine has included within its site "Outside" and "Inside" forums for its readers. Within each forum, readers may either post a new article or search through existing articles for various topics. Again, a home owner seeking helpful house and gardening-related advice would be well-advised to stick to the "Outside" forum; the "Inside" forum is mostly comprised of online debates about current films.

It's a somewhat odd mix, to be sure, but this site, recently named one of the 'Net's most entertaining, is informative nonetheless. Check it out. You might be inspired.

Published: November 3, 1998

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Editor's Note: This article reflects the opinions of Courtney Ronan only and not necessarily the views of this or any other publication, organization or Website owner.